1. Field of the Invention
This technology relates to charge pumps and charge pump clocking.
2. Description of Related Art
A four phase charge pump system is a power efficient design that addresses problems with threshold voltage dependence. Such four phase charge pump systems are associated with relatively long setup times. Setup time requirements generally become more demanding with increased operation speeds.
A performance metric for a memory integrated circuit is the time elapsed between receiving a command to perform a read operation, and actually performing the read operation. From the time that a read command is received by the integrated circuit, setup time is required for the four phase clock and additional setup time is required for the active charge pump. Setup time for the multi-phase clock signal effectively takes away from available setup time for the active charge pump. Setup time for the active charge pump is lengthened by leakage current from the internal nodes of an active charge pump.